Amiga Makes Central Florida Debut

August 10, 1985|By Tim Smart of The Sentinel Staff

Commodore International Ltd., which dominated the home-computer market until the bottom fell out of that industry during the past year, brought its long-awaited home and small-business computer to Orlando Friday.

The visit to Central Florida was one of four dozen on a whistle-stop tour launched by Commodore to sell its $1,295 Amiga personal computer to independent U.S. dealers. The company is forsaking for the moment the huge, national computer-store chains in favor of retailers who sell primarily to individuals and small businesses.

The Amiga -- with its speedy processing, mesmerizing graphics and life- like speech synthesizer -- already has drawn superlatives from industry analysts, magazine reviewers and dealers who have seen it. Some have dubbed it a ''color Mac'' because of its likeness to Apple Computer Corp.'s Macintosh, which features a monochrome monitor instead of a color display.

Like the Macintosh, the Amiga makes use of a ''mouse,'' a small device that slides across the desk to activate a cursor on the screen. It also uses icons, little electronic symbols, to depict the commands the computer is following. But it differs from Macintosh by providing a full-color display and both speech and sound capabilities. The Commodore monitor, which includes a built-in stereo amplifier and speakers, will sell for $495.

''It's clearly a new generation,'' said Mark McCaskill, manager of The Open Door, a computer software and book dealer from Cocoa who attended Friday's demonstration. ''It's far and away the best machine yet.''

That may not be enough for Commodore, which lost $20.8 million in the quarter ended March 31. The company won an expensive battle with Atari (now headed by Commodore founder Jack Tramiel) to develop Amiga, and many in the industry wonder whether it can foot the bill for the kind of marketing necessary to make Amiga a financial success.

Commodore is touting the Amiga as a machine for small businesses and upscale home users. Aware that the corporate market is the territory of International Business Machines Corp., the world's largest computer maker, Commodore is stressing the Amiga's graphics and design abilities, pushing it toward such potential users as design firms. A $20 million advertising campaign is planned for mid-September, when the Amiga should begin appearing on dealers' shelves.